Mermaid Tears

Mermaid Tears

amy worcester · Ongoing · 272.1k Words

506
Hot
20.4k
Views
713
Added
Add to Shelf
Start Reading
Share:facebooktwitterpinterestwhatsappreddit

Introduction

Helen has found happiness with Reese and are starting over with triplets. Reese is having to slow down in his business while Helen is finally getting to do the job she always wanted.

Meanwhile, their children from previous marriages are moving out and starting their own lives. This book focuses on the next generation of the family.

Jaxon, Ty and Bunny already have a daughter and are expecting another baby. As Ty and Bunny move up in their careers, Jaxon wonders if there is more that he should be doing. With their encouragement, he returns to school, but it puts a strain on their relationships.

Jolene and Neo are still building a relationship, planning a wedding and rebuilding after Neo's business was sabotaged. She is doing better after divorcing her abusive ex who is now in jail. But some of Hank's other decisions start to haunt her and threaten their future.

JD and Dean are starting their lives together with him in the Navy and her attending nearby Tulane. Their roommate is struggling to move past a lost relationship and makes Dean question what she wants.

Cheryl and Wayne have moved back to be closer to her family. But as her large family interferes, she starts to remember why she moved away.

Please be aware that there are trigger warnings: abusive relationship recovery, reverse harem, military trauma, and death.

Chapter 1

Suddenly she realized that what she was regretting was not the lost past but the lost future, not what had not been but what would never be. – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Seventeen years, four months and nine days.

If you did the math from the day she was born, until the day she died, that’s what you would get. She had always called it the ‘Dash Time.’ He could still hear her voice.

That’s what matters, Coop. Not when I was born, or when I’ll die. It’s that dash time in between. That’s the only thing that really matters.

The Dash Time.

Her Dash Time was seventeen years, four months and nine days.

Cooper stood in the quiet graveyard and looked at the pink marble headstone, his running shoes squishing slightly in the ground still damp from an overnight rain. Standing beneath the overcast sky, it was almost as if nature was crying with him, accepting the tears as it had the raindrops in the dark hours.

There was no reason for him to blink the tears away from his eyes. He knew what the headstone said by heart.

Tabitha Michelle Henderson Cooper

Beloved daughter, sister, wife and friend

Wife. She had been his wife for five days. Tabby had been the only daughter and she wanted to walk down the aisle with her father. He had been sitting in the hospital room when she made her final wish.

To get married.

Without any hesitation, he proposed.

His best friend’s twin sister was dying of cancer, and he had loved her for years. Knew that he would always love her. Before she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he pictured a life with her. Two or three kids. White picket fence. Dog running around the yard.

He wanted the life that the Hendersons had. An undying love. One that held them together through the death of their only daughter.

And a year later, to the day, their only son.

Cooper’s eyes moved to the dark gray headstone next to Tabby’s.

Eighteen years, four months and nine days.

Tennyson Michael Henderson.

Beloved brother, son and friend.

Cooper’s heart broke the day that she died. It was broken but continued to beat inside his chest. Tenn never recovered. They had made it through their senior year without her. Made it through basic training. Cooper thought that they would make it through and beyond the first anniversary together.

Instead, Chief woke him up just before five that morning, told him that there was something he had to tell Cooper. Later that day, Cooper and Chief stood on the Henderson’s front porch. Unable to live without his twin, Tenn hung himself in the stairwell of the barracks.

Roughly at the same time that Tabby had died the year before.

Coop never asked why. He knew. On the same early June day, two years in a row, his heart broke. The first year it continued to beat because he promised her he would go on. The second year, he was not certain that it would continue to beat.

Standing before the headstones, he slipped his hand inside his pocket and felt the small band of gold that he had put on her finger six years and five days ago. The same band again reminded Cooper that he still had to continue to live. He had promises to keep.

It was a simple gold band; she didn’t want anything elaborate. Didn’t want anyone to waste their money on a dying wish. The simple band had been donated by a jeweler, accepting the meager forty-five dollars that Cooper had in his pocket. As simple as it was, he knew it cost more than the measly two twenties and five ones.

He had argued with the jeweler to accept it and finally the old man took it, telling the teen groom that it would be donated.

A local dress shop brought in two racks of dresses for Tabby to choose from. She had been too weak to try them on, so one of the nurses modeled for her. The pale pink dress with a sheer shawl hid the IV tubes while keeping her arms exposed.

She had made a beautiful bride.

In the pink lined coffin, she would wear her bridal gown forever more. Her brother was buried in his crisp new Navy uniform.

Cooper finally let his eyes move to the double headstone on the other side of Tabby’s. It had only recently been placed; the marble had not even settled into the ground yet. They were killed in a head on collision at the beginning of the year.

Barely a week after celebrating his friend getting married, he learned of their deaths. When he got the notice, JD had been with him. JD had taken him home, to the house that his stepdad, Reese, had bought for him and his new wife, then he sat up with Cooper as he drank himself stupid.

In the morning, they requested emergency leave. Cooper because the only family that he had left was now gone. And JD because he believed his friend needed support. Chief Pollard and Captain Harlow agreed and sent JD with Cooper.

While they were here in January, Cooper told him all the details of his life. His father left to go get the infamous pack of cigarettes before his son was even born. His mother had worked multiple jobs to pay her way through nursing school. Continued to work multiple jobs to ensure her son had a future. He spent more and more time with the Henderson’s and when she was killed by a psych patient, they petitioned for custody.

His own mother lay in a grave on the other side of the property. The grave marked by only a flat slab with her name and dates on it. No epitaph. No design. Not even a beloved mother engraving.

Josephine Cooper

Thirty-two years, six months and twenty-three days.

Her dash time was spent working, studying and trying to keep her son out of trouble. Her dash time was longer than Tabby’s, but Tabby lived hers to the fullest. When the cancer diagnosis came, she made a bucket list. By the time the treatments quit working and her cancer became terminal, she had done most of her items.

There were a few that she never got to do. Her family did them in her memory after her death.

After they were married, Tabby gave Cooper her other bucket list. And her TBR. He didn’t know what a TBR was.

“To. Be. Read.” She laughed. “These are the books that I want to read. And these,” she handed him a piece of paper, “are the things that I always wanted to experience. More than just reading about them. Do them for me.”

He had expected to see a trip to the Caribbean. A cruise. Fishing in Alaska. Things she had always talked about.

“Find a woman, a good woman, Coop, and experience all of it with her.”

As a seventeen-year-old boy, he had not known what half the things on her list were. Shared. Placed on a spit. Stuffed. Watched. Toys. There were even specific toys listed. And places. Against a wall. Over a desk. On the beach.

Over the past six years, he had read her books. Experimented with different sex positions. Different places.

But he knew it wasn’t what she wanted. Even though he had done everything on the list, sometimes multiple times, none of them were marked off. Tabby didn’t want him to do it with random women, like the waitress that JD had introduced him to. She had been a little freak, willing to do damned near anything.

As long as it was casual, no repeat performances and was never spoken of in the diner.

“I think I may have found her.” Cooper finally whispered to his wife’s headstone. “You would like her.”

He stepped forward and laid a penny on Tenn’s headstone. “I miss you, man.”

With a glance at the double headstone, he turned and walked back to where JD stood next to his pickup truck. The younger man pulled him into a hug and held him as Cooper gave into the tears.

Cooper stood a few inches taller than his friend’s six feet two inches. Where he had pale blonde hair and pale green eyes, JD had mousy brown hair and dark hazel eyes. He also had more tattoos and muscular bulk than his younger friend. But they both spent a lot of time at the gym.

And in the tattoo chair.

They both wore jeans and blue Navy T-shirts for their unit. Cooper’s arms were completely sleeved out while the newer tattoos barely peeked out from JD’s sleeve.

“I’m here, man.” JD told him and Cooper nodded.

Last Chapters

You Might Like 😍

The War God Alpha's Arranged Bride

The War God Alpha's Arranged Bride

491.3k Views · Ongoing · Riley Above Story
On the day Evelyn thought Liam would propose, he shocked her by getting down on one knee—for her stepsister, Samantha. As if that betrayal wasn’t enough, Evelyn learned the cruel truth: her parents had already decided to sell one daughter’s future to a dangerous man: the infamous War God Alpha Alexander, who was rumored to be scarred and crippled after a recent accident. And the bride could’t be their precious daughter Samantha. However, when the "ugly and crippled" Alpha revealed his true self—an impossibly handsome billionaire with no trace of injury—Samantha had a change of heart. She was ready to dump Liam and take Evelyn's place as the family daughter who should marry Alexander.
Yet Alexander made his decision clear to the world: “Evelyn is the only woman I will ever marry.”
The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates

The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates

1.8m Views · Ongoing · Jaylee
Soft hot lips find the shell of my ear and he whispers, "You think I don't want you?" He pushes his hips forward, grinding into the back of my ass and I groan. "Really?" He chuckles.

"Let me go," I whimper, my body trembling with need. "I don't want you touching me."

I fall forward onto the bed then turn around to stare at him. The dark tattoos of Domonic's chiseled shoulders, quiver and and expand with the heave of his chest. His deep dimpled smile is full of arrogance as he reaches behind himself to lock the door.

Biting his lip, he stalks toward me, his hand going to the seam of his pants and the thickening bulge there.

"Are you sure you don't want me to touch you?" He whispers, untying the knot and slipping a hand inside. "Because I swear to God, that is all I have been wanting to do. Every single day from the moment you stepped in our bar and I smelled your perfect flavor from across the room."


New to the world of shifters, Draven is human on the run. A beautiful girl who no one could protect. Domonic is the cold Alpha of the Red Wolf Pack. A brotherhood of twelve wolves that live by twelve rules. Rules which they vowed could NEVER be broken.

Especially - Rule Number One - No Mates

When Draven meets Domonic, he knows that she is his mate, but Draven has no idea what a mate is, only that she has fallen in love with a shifter. An Alpha that will break her heart to make her leave. Promising herself, she will never forgive him, she disappears.

But she doesn’t know about the child she’s carrying or that the moment she left, Domonic decided rules were made to be broken - and now will he ever find her again? Will she forgive him?
The Biker's Fate

The Biker's Fate

1.3m Views · Completed · Piper Davenport
"You are absolutely my fucking woman, Dani. Got me?"
I squeezed my eyes shut.
"Dani," he pressed. "Do you get me?"
"No, Austin, I don't," I admitted as I pulled my robe closed again and sat up. "You confuse me."
He dragged his hands down his face. "Tell me what's on your mind."
I sighed. "You're everything my parents warned me against. You're secretive, but you're also honest. I feel wholly protected by you, but then you scare me more than anyone I've ever known. You're a bad boy, but when I dated a so-called good one, he turned out to be the devil, so, yeah, I don't get you because you're not what I expected. You drive me crazier than anyone I've ever met, but then you make me feel complete. I'm feeling things I don't quite know how to process and that makes me want to run. I don't want to give up something that might be really, really good, but I also don't want to be stupid and fall for a boy just because he's super pretty and makes me come."
Danielle Harris is the daughter of an overprotective police chief and has led a sheltered life. As a kindergarten teacher, she's as far removed from the world of Harleys and bikers as you could get, but when she's rescued by the sexy and dangerous Austin Carver, her life is changed forever.
Although Austin 'Booker' Carver is enamored by the innocent Dani, he tries to keep the police chief's daughter at arm's length. But when a threat is made from an unexpected source, he finds himself falling hard and fast for the only woman who can tame his wild heart.
Will Booker be able to find the source of the threat before it's too late?
Will Dani finally give her heart to a man who's everything she's been warned about?
I Slapped My Fiancé—Then Married His Billionaire Nemesis

I Slapped My Fiancé—Then Married His Billionaire Nemesis

396.4k Views · Completed · Jessica C. Dolan
Being second best is practically in my DNA. My sister got the love, the attention, the spotlight. And now, even her damn fiancé.
Technically, Rhys Granger was my fiancé now—billionaire, devastatingly hot, and a walking Wall Street wet dream. My parents shoved me into the engagement after Catherine disappeared, and honestly? I didn’t mind. I’d crushed on Rhys for years. This was my chance, right? My turn to be the chosen one?
Wrong.
One night, he slapped me. Over a mug. A stupid, chipped, ugly mug my sister gave him years ago. That’s when it hit me—he didn’t love me. He didn’t even see me. I was just a warm-bodied placeholder for the woman he actually wanted. And apparently, I wasn’t even worth as much as a glorified coffee cup.
So I slapped him right back, dumped his ass, and prepared for disaster—my parents losing their minds, Rhys throwing a billionaire tantrum, his terrifying family plotting my untimely demise.
Obviously, I needed alcohol. A lot of alcohol.
Enter him.
Tall, dangerous, unfairly hot. The kind of man who makes you want to sin just by existing. I’d met him only once before, and that night, he just happened to be at the same bar as my drunk, self-pitying self. So I did the only logical thing: I dragged him into a hotel room and ripped off his clothes.
It was reckless. It was stupid. It was completely ill-advised.
But it was also: Best. Sex. Of. My. Life.
And, as it turned out, the best decision I’d ever made.
Because my one-night stand isn’t just some random guy. He’s richer than Rhys, more powerful than my entire family, and definitely more dangerous than I should be playing with.
And now, he’s not letting me go.
The Biker Alpha Who Became My Second Chance Mate

The Biker Alpha Who Became My Second Chance Mate

219.9k Views · Completed · Ray Nhedicta
I can't breathe. Every touch, every kiss from Tristan set my body on fire, drowning me in a sensation I shouldn't have wanted—especially not that night.
"You're like a sister to me."
Those were the actual words that broke the camel's back.
Not after what just happened. Not after the hot, breathless, soul-shaking night we spent tangled in each other's arms.
I knew from the beginning that Tristan Hayes was a line I shouldn't cross.
He wasn't just anyone, he was my brother's best friend. The man I spent years secretly wanting.
But that night... we were broken. We had just buried our parents. And the grief was too heavy, too real...so I begged him to touch me.
To make me forget. To fill the silence that death left behind.
And he did. He held me like I was something fragile.
Kissed me like I was the only thing he needed to breathe.
Then left me bleeding with six words that burned deeper than rejection ever could.
So, I ran. Away from everything that cost me pain.
Now, five years later, I'm back.
Fresh from rejecting the mate who abused me. Still carrying the scars of a pup I never got to hold.
And the man waiting for me at the airport isn't my brother.
It's Tristan.
And he's not the guy I left behind.
He's a biker.
An Alpha.
And when he looked at me, I knew there was no where else to run to.
Balance of Light and Shadow

Balance of Light and Shadow

237.2k Views · Ongoing · Chandrea
After escaping the brutalities of her pack, the rogue she-wolf is only interested in protecting those she cares for. While protecting the innocents during a royal raid, she runs into a wolf claiming to be the Alpha King and worse yet, he claims she is his Mate. She barely escaped that life alive and has been living as a human since she was a teenager and no one was going to make her go back.

Little did she know how much both worlds need her to bring peace and true freedom.
Mr. Ryan

Mr. Ryan

341.4k Views · Completed · Mary D. Sant
"What things are not under your control tonight?" I gave my best smile, leaning against the wall.
He came closer with a dark and hungry expression,
so close,
his hands reached for my face, and he pressed his body against mine.
His mouth took mine eagerly, a little rudely.
His tongue left me breathless.
“If you don't go with me, I'll fuck you right here.” He whispered.


Katherine kept her virginity for years even after she turned 18. But one day, she met an extremely sexual man Nathan Ryan in the club. He had the most seductive blue eyes she has ever seen, a well-defined chin, almost golden blonde hair, full lips, perfectly drawn, and the most amazing smile, with perfect teeth and those damn dimples. Incredibly sexy.

She and he had a beautiful and hot one-night stand...
Katherine thought she might not meet the man again.
But fate has another plan

Katherine is about to take on the job of assistant to a billionaire who owns one of the biggest companies in the country and is known to be a conquering, authoritative and completely irresistible man. He is Nathan Ryan!

Will Kate be able to resist the charms of this attractive, powerful and seductive man?
Read to know a relationship torn between anger and the uncontrollable desire for pleasure.

Warning: R18+, Only for mature readers.
My Possessive Alpha Twins For Mate

My Possessive Alpha Twins For Mate

832.9k Views · Completed · Veejay
"No... You can't do this to me..." I almost squeezed the words through my teeth, my voice trembling.
My drunk stepfather remained indifferent, his weight suffocating, making it hard to breathe as my heart raced.
Suddenly, the door slammed open, and two figures burst in.
"Get off her!" a deafening roar echoed.
I didn't expect the twin brothers who'd bullied me at school to come charging in like gods to save me.
After my grandmother passed, I had to move in with my mom and stepdad, who treated me like a servant. I prayed every day for my 18th birthday to come, so l could leave and escape this broken home.
However, on my first day at my new school, l encountered the legendary twins everyone feared.
To make matters worse, the Moon Goddess revealed they were both my mates!
After helping me out with my stepdad, my twin mate cornered me, played with my hair, and whispered possessively, "You belong to us, our little mate..."
Oops, Wrong Girl to Bully

Oops, Wrong Girl to Bully

95.7k Views · Completed · Xena Kessler
An original story by Xena Kessler
My back hit the desk. Pain exploded through my skull.
"Girls like you don't get to dream about guys like Kai." Bella's breath was hot on my face. "You don't get to write pathetic love letters."
She shoved me again. Harder.
"Maybe if you weren't such a desperate little—"
I fell. My head cracked against the corner.
Warmth trickled down my neck. Blood.
Their laughter turned to gasps.
The door slammed.
I tried to stand. Couldn't. The room was spinning, fading to black.
Someone... please...
Angelina, the most powerful Alpha who conquered forty-nine packs, dies in a yacht explosion—only to wake up as Aria Sterling, a fifteen-year-old Omega's daughter who just died from bullying.
The original Aria's life was a nightmare. Humiliated when golden boy Kai Matthews posted her love letter online, then shoved to death by his girlfriend Bella Morrison. But that's not all her family faces:
"You got until Monday," the tattooed gangster sneered at Aria's mother. "Ten grand cash. Or I'm taking collateral—your kids' organs fetch top dollar. That pretty daughter of yours? She could make us money another way too."
Now Angelina's lethal combat skills awaken in this fragile body. No more hiding. No more fear.
Armed with an Alpha's ruthlessness and a mysterious blood-red pendant, she'll dismantle everyone who hurt this family—one calculated move at a time.
Goddess Of The Underworld: The Goddess Legacy (Book One)

Goddess Of The Underworld: The Goddess Legacy (Book One)

422.7k Views · Completed · Sheridan Hartin
Left at a pack border with a name and a stubborn heartbeat, Envy grows into the sharpest kind of survivor, an orphaned warrior who knows how to hold a line and keep moving. Love isn’t in the plan…until four alpha wolves with playboy reputations and inconveniently soft hands decide the girl who won’t bow is the only queen they’ll ever take. Their mate. The one they have waited for. Xavier, Haiden, Levi, and Noah are gorgeous, lethal, and anything but perfect and Envy isn’t either. She’s changing. First into hell hound, Layah at her heels and fire in her veins. Then into what the realm has been waiting for, a Goddess of the Underworld, dragging her mates down to hell with her. Then finally into lycan princess, stronger, faster, the moon finally answering back, giving her exactly what she needs to protect her family.

When the veil between the Divine, the Living, and the Dead begins to crack, Envy is thrust beneath with a job she can’t drop: keep the worlds from bleeding together, shepherd the lost, and make ordinary into armor, breakfasts, bedtime, battle plans. Peace lasts exactly one lullaby. This is the story of a border pup who became a goddess by choosing her family; of four imperfect alphas learning how to stay; of cake, iron, and daylight negotiations. Steamy, fierce, and full of heart, Goddess of the Underworld is a reverse harem, found-family paranormal romance where love writes the rules and keeps three realms from falling apart.
Crowned by Fate

Crowned by Fate

184.6k Views · Completed · Tina S
“You think I’d share my mate? Just stand by and watch while you fuck another woman and have her kids?”
“She’d just be a Breeder, you would be the Luna. Once she’s pregnant, I wouldn’t touch her again.” my mate Leon’s jaw tightened.
I laughed, a bitter, broken sound.
“You’re unbelievable. I’d rather accept your rejection than live like that.”


As a girl without a wolf, I left my mate and my pack behind.
Among humans, I survived by becoming a master of the temporary: drifting job to job… until I became the best bartender in a dusty Texas town.
That’s where Alpha Adrian found me.
No one could resist the charming Adrian, and I joined his mysterious pack hidden deep in the desert.
The Alpha King Tournament, held once every four years, had begun. Over fifty packs from across North America were competing.
The werewolf world was on the verge of a revolution. That’s when I saw Leon again...
Torn between two Alphas, I had no idea that what awaited us wasn’t just a competition—but a series of brutal, unforgiving trials.
Author Note:New book out now! The River Knows Her Name
Mystery, secrets, suspense—your next page-turner is here.
Mated by Contract to the Alpha

Mated by Contract to the Alpha

383.5k Views · Completed · CalebWhite
My perfect life shattered in a single heartbeat.
William—my devastatingly handsome, wealthy werewolf fiancé destined to become Delta—was supposed to be mine forever. After five years together, I was ready to walk down the aisle and claim my happily ever after.
Instead, I found him with her. And their son.
Betrayed, jobless, and drowning in my father's medical bills, I hit rock bottom harder than I ever imagined possible. Just when I thought I'd lost everything, salvation came in the form of the most dangerous man I'd ever encountered.
Damien Sterling—future Alpha of the Silver Moon Shadow Pack and ruthless CEO of Sterling Group—slid a contract across his desk with predatory grace.
“Sign this, little doe, and I'll give you everything your heart desires. Wealth. Power. Revenge. But understand this—the moment you put pen to paper, you become mine. Body, soul, and everything in between.”
I should have run. Instead, I signed my name and sealed my fate.
Now I belong to the Alpha. And he's about to show me just how wild love can be.